This article shows how out of touch with reality Congress and the American people are.

The Federal Reserve is the enabler not the cause of QE.

QE is necessary to kick the debt/deficit cans down the road.

It can not be stopped unless Congress stops deficit spending.

The Fed is check mated.

If they stop QE interest rates go up, interest on the debt will skyrocket and the bond market will collapse.

If the Fed keeps QEing the same will happen but at a later time.

The result of an "exceptional" stupid US population that wants "... money for nothing and chicks for free ..."

10:12 am February 25, 2013

RVN Draftee wrote:

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”
--Mayer Amschel Rothschild

10:42 am February 25, 2013

Jones wrote:

Fantasy to think they can ever exit. They will inflate and avoid the depreesion until the monetary system crashes and burns. Period end of story and everything else is a smoke screen.

12:57 pm February 25, 2013

Tom22 wrote:

How many more decades will it be before the economists figure out that it is demand that needs to be stimulated directly and that investment and interest rates should not be manipulated outside of points of solvency and panic crisis.

Demand however shouldn't be done through a sugar high kind of stimulus like tax cuts but instead would ideally go to paying for work on delayed maintenance/improvements on infrastructure projects. If that 85 billion monthly were distributed as "collateral backed" loans on bridges and road ways at 0% interest... ditributed to county goverments (not states) on a per capita basis, you'd have long term infrastructure improvements to help commerce long after the recession waned, you'd have lower unemployment , and you'd assuage the wild swings in capital equipment purchases (which are in themselves long term investments)

Hyper low interest rates without an increased demand creates much more financial restructuring and makes agency dilemma/corruption much easier to pull off via yield spreads and selling financially created profit streams at multiples that wouldn't be justified, or could not so easily be created with a higher interest rate environment.

1:09 pm February 25, 2013

The Truth wrote:

he Federal Reserve System

Apparently there were constant battles for control of the republic between the international bankers and presidents. Controlling the central bank of a country seems to be a crucial part of installing a dictatorship. Allen wrote, “From the earliest days, the Founding Fathers had been conscious of attempts to control America through money manipulation, and they carried on a running battle with the international bankers.”

“Essential to controlling a government is the establishment of a central bank with a monopoly on the country’s supply of money and credit,” wrote Perloff. Meyer Rothschild is said to have remarked, “Let me issue and control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes its laws.” Allen concurred, “All those who have sought dictatorial control over modern nations have understood the necessity of a central bank. When the League of Just Men hired a hack revolutionary named Karl Marx to write a blueprint for conquest called The Communist Manifesto, the fifth plank read: “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state… Lenin later said that the establishment of a central bank was ninety percent of communizing a country.”

Senator Barry Goldwater described an international banker as one who makes money by extending credit to governments. This is more beneficial to the banker than loaning to an individual because governments borrow much more, and they can guarantee repayment by burdening the people with taxes. Also, instead of debt payment, a banker may receive political influence. Perloff wrote, “No turn of events is more lucrative for an international banker than war–because nothing generates more government borrowing faster.”

“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry, and commerce … and when you realize that the system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation, and depression originate.”
-President James Garfield July 2, 1881

One attempt to gain control of the country by way of a central bank was with the Bank of the United States (1816-36), which was abolished by President Andrew Jackson. Jackson warned, “The bold effort the present [Bank of the United States] had made to control the government, the distress it had wantonly produced … are but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” Note the semantic deception used with the naming of the bank, “Bank of the United States,” as if to imply that it was part of the government. This was not the last time this tactic was used.(*)

Senator Goldwater wrote, “In the early years of the Republic … Jefferson opposed Alexander Hamilton’s scheme for the First Bank of the United States, and Andrew Jackson abolished Nicholas Biddle’s Second Bank of the United States.” “America heeded Jackson’s warning for the remainder of the century,” wrote Perloff. But the “tide began to turn … with the linking of European and U.S. banking interest, and the growing in power of America’s money barons, such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Bernard Baruch.”

A German banker named Paul Warburg migrated to the U.S. in 1902. He was an associate of the Rothschilds and became a partner in Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, which was headed by Jacob Schiff. The Schiffs also had ties to the Rothschilds, which went back about a century. Warburg began to lecture widely on the need for a central banking system.

Apparently the international bankers became impatient over the unwillingness of congress to accept a central bank. So using the Problem-Reaction-Solution formula, Wall Street deliberately created a panic to force congress to create a central banking system controlled by private interests. This was done to eliminate competition and to seize control of the country by way of the Federal Reserve System.

Perloff wrote, “The Panic of 1907 was artificially triggered to elicit public acceptance of this idea. Snowballing bank runs began after J.P. Morgan spread a rumor about the insolvency of the Trust Company of America.” He added, “Tragedy is the mother of new directions. The Panic of 1907 spawned the Federal Reserve.”

Allen described J. P. Morgan as “an old hand at creating artificial panics.” He stated, “Such affairs were well co-coordinated. Senator Robert Owen, a co-author of the Federal Reserve Act, (who later deeply regretted his role), testified before a Congressional Committee that the bank he owned received from the National Bankers’ Association what came to be know as the Panic Circular of 1893. It established: ‘You will at once retire one-third of your circulation and call in one-half of your loans.’”

On April 25, 1949, Life Magazine ran an article entitled, Morgan The Great, where historian Frederick Lewis Allen reported that “certain chroniclers have arrived at the ingenious conclusion that the Morgan interests took advantage of the unsettled conditions during the autumn of 1907 to precipitate the panic, guiding it shrewdly as it progressed so that it would kill off rival banks and consolidate the preeminence of the banks within the Morgan orbit.”

This deliberately created (problem) caused a predictable panic (reaction), which forced congress to create a commission to investigate other banking options, which resulted in the Federal Reserve (solution). In a Congressional Record dated, December 22, 1913, vol. 51, Congressman Charles Lindberg declared, “The Money Trust … caused the 1907 panic, and thereby forced Congress to create a National Monetary Commission.”

Federal Reserve BoardPerloff describes the Money Trust as, Wall Street monopolists such as Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, and Schiff. Heading the National Monetary Commission was Senator Nelson Aldrich, who was under the control of the international bankers. “Aldrich was known as the international bankers’ mouthpiece on Capitol Hill,” wrote Perloff. There was apparently some bribery that took place too. Top left is Paul Warburg. Bottom right is Frederic Delano.(**)

The commission spent about two years studying central banks in Europe, and finally the “Federal Reserve became law in December 1913,” declared Perloff. The solution was drafted at Morgan’s hunting club on Jekyl (sic) Island off the coast of Georgia. “The Fed,” stated Allen, “was drafted on Jekyl Island in Georgia by Senator Nelson Aldrich; Henry P. Davison of J. P. Morgan and Company; Frank A. Vanderlip, President of the Rockefeller-owned National City Bank; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Benjamin Strong of Morgan’s Bankers Trust Company; and [Rothschild representative] Paul Warburg.” Tucker added “The ‘Fed,’ … is allied with the Bilderberg group, which is composed of the world’s biggest moneychangers–led by the Rockefellers and Rothschilds.”

The naming of this bank was another tactic of semantic deception; there is no reserve, and it’s not federal. The Federal Reserve is privately owned, it makes its own polices and is not subject to the president or congress. Many of its members are from the CFR. “Probably 90% of the US citizens think that the Federal Reserve System is one of the branches of the federal government,” Ross said, and added, “most think that it is part of the Treasury Department … because of the term ‘Federal’ in its name.” “This is no accident,” he proclaims, but a “psychological ploy to con the Americans into accepting their deception. It is not ‘Federal’ and there is no ‘Reserve.’”

Perloff added, “Indeed, the Fed is authorized to create money-and thus inflate–at will. According to the constitution, only Congress may issue money or regulate its value. The Federal Reserve Act, however, placed these functions in the hands of private bankers–to their perpetual profit.” Senator Goldwater wrote, “The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside of the control of Congress and through its Board of Governors manipulates the credit of the United States.”

Federal Reserve board members serve 14-year terms and are appointed by the president. “Since these positions control the entire economy of the country they are far more important than cabinet positions,” said Allen. He continued, “These appointments which should be extensively debated by the Senate are routinely approved.” The results he says are “ever-increasing debt requiring ever-increasing interest payments, inflation and periodic scientifically created depressions and recessions.”

Also in 1913, the 16th amendment was passed which subjected citizens to a federal tax. “Because income tax has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895, it had to be instituted by constitutional amendment,” wrote Perloff. Again, Senator Nelson Aldrich who was handled by the international bankers proposed the amendment. “The man who brought forward the amendment in Congress was the same senator who proposed the plan for the Federal Reserve–Nelson Aldrich,” observed Perloff.

Apparently the American people agreed to this new tax because they believed it would have a minimal impact on the middle class and would impede the rich. “Initially, it was nominal,” Perloff described, “a mere one percent of income under $20,000–a figure few made in those days.” According to Perloff the American people were assured it would never increase.

Another reason is that the public was deceived by clever propaganda that the Federal Reserve would stabilize the economy and prevent future panics. “It did nothing of the kind,” declared Perloff. “Not only has our nation suffered through the Great Depression and numerous recessions, but inflation and federal debt-negligible problems before the Fed came into existence–have plagued America ever since.”

1:13 pm February 25, 2013

Honest Steve's used car lot wrote:

Would you buy a used car from this guy. Yea, didn't think so!

1:16 pm February 25, 2013

The Undertaker wrote:

The foreign owned criminal banksterster pimping NWO globalist FED has no exit strategy, only an extended license to steal other peoples money and print trillions in debt. End the FED!

1:17 pm February 25, 2013

Goodfellow wrote:

Hey, I saw this face on my post offices wall.

1:20 pm February 25, 2013

P.T. Barnum wrote:

The Fed is my friend.

1:21 pm February 25, 2013

Banco Ambrosiano wrote:

We were a Fed protege,

1:22 pm February 25, 2013

Vatican Bank wrote:

Bless the Fed.

1:24 pm February 25, 2013

J.P. Morgan wrote:

We helped create the Fed

1:45 pm February 25, 2013

Ex-Apostle of the $USD wrote:

I'll keep posing this question until I see an answer : How is the Fed to be considered a friend to most folks when it’s program of debasing our money drives up the cost of living. How are higher prices for essentials good for most people. .? The conclusion to be reached is that is what is considered good for the economy is financially harmful to most folks

1:51 pm February 25, 2013

George Patton wrote:

Let's call a spade a spade. The Fed in its existence has never been more than a mega money laundering machine and the bastards that ran and run it nothing more than cheap bunco artists. This country needs a good slap in the face.

1:52 pm February 25, 2013

Sellaman Rushie wrote:

Ditto the Undertaker and GP.

1:56 pm February 25, 2013

Daniel Webster wrote:

I would advise this man to take the fifth.

1:57 pm February 25, 2013

CY wrote:

Mr Patton,

Sadly, I can’t see Americans or the people of the world becoming intelligent enough to form an effective strategy for eliminating the central bank parasite before it kills them.

1:58 pm February 25, 2013

The Devil wrote:

I like him just the way he is.

2:01 pm February 25, 2013

CPA Boston wrote:

The Fed is not and never has been officially audited. They have basic joke accountants that give out quarterly numbers of interest but it is far far from a true thorough non-biased independent audit. As has been mentioned once or twice on here the Fed accountants are Deloitte and Touche who have been implicated in a large number of major financial scandals both domestically and internationally, Just Google Deloitte and Touche scandals and you’ll be busy for a long time. The congress takes orders from the Fed, not the other way around in the real world. These congressional hearings are a meaningless charade.

2:04 pm February 25, 2013

Mark Fuhrmin wrote:

This person should be numero uno on America's Most Wanted.

2:05 pm February 25, 2013

Bell Helicopters wrote:

We love Ben.

2:06 pm February 25, 2013

Orion Gate wrote:

Man the Google scandal pages on Deloitte and Touche are long and many, Cheez!

2:08 pm February 25, 2013

The Undertaker wrote:

The FED has no exit plan at all, Berbanke is on the way out and should be on his way to San Quentin for all the RICO statues he has obliterated. Fraud, money laundering, not registering as a foreign agent, etc.The FED is good at one thing, stealing other peoples money and giving it to the Banksters or having it just disappear. It needs to be audited and ended and thrown into the dust bin of criminal history. The FED makes the old “Teapot Domers” look like choirboys. Nobody supports the FED. Look at all the ex-Presidents that were against or eliminated a central bank. WIlson regretted greatly the fact he had helped in it’s inception. The FED is nothing more than a body of two bit crooks.

2:11 pm February 25, 2013

Thomas Jefferson quote wrote:

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.

2:13 pm February 25, 2013

Mort Sahl wrote:

Great blogs and funny too.

2:15 pm February 25, 2013

Rap Daddy wrote:

Fuhrmin has described the vermin.

3:09 pm February 25, 2013

21 dealer wrote:

The fed House of Cards is starting to collapse.

3:11 pm February 25, 2013

Chuck Hughes wrote:

Bernanke has his exit stategy, which is get out of town and disappear fast when it all goes down

3:39 pm February 25, 2013

Dave wrote:

Like I've said before, most of the reasons the Fed's policy doesn't work well is that it's focused on pumping money into just one market--the financial sector. It needs to try a different dance partner. If it did, then it would be a whole lot easier to "exit." First, it would not need to pump so much money into the sector in the first place because a more balanced approach would give more bang for the buck. Second, when it did wind down, the constraint on the economy would be more broadly (and therefore thinly) felt. The Fed is limited in what it can do because of its restricted powers, but they are not thinking outside the box, and you can be certain that Congress is not going to provide the leadership for reforming the Fed.

3:47 pm February 25, 2013

Anonymous wrote:

The fed has made no progress and it has no exit strategy at all, just print more debt paper money is their mantra. They are seriously overstaffed, one person could do this crap.

3:50 pm February 25, 2013

Marv Goldberg wrote:

The fed's job should be making prison uniforms for their leadership and employees. At least then they could do something worthwhile.

3:52 pm February 25, 2013

rpc wrote:

when does the Fed realize this policy isn't a panacea? Tepid growth and relatively high unemployment despite this policy being in place for some time.

3:58 pm February 25, 2013

Professor Graham wrote:

The Fed is also known as the Zimbabwe preparatory school.

4:06 pm February 25, 2013

RR wrote:

Mr. Bernanke, tear down this wall of secrecy.

4:08 pm February 25, 2013

Kent T wrote:

Like The Undertaker says, can you say Weimar Republic.

4:09 pm February 25, 2013

WWOTE wrote:

How about a little Italian fire market scarecrow!

5:36 pm February 25, 2013

Barry Oberstein wrote:

The fed exit strategy is to bankrupt the whole middle class and enrich the 1%,

The uncertain Fed driven economy is continuing to take its toll on Americans' personal finances, new research shows.

A study by Bankrate.com revealed that just 55 percent of U.S. consumers have more emergency savings than credit card debt.

While that's slightly up from 54 percent last year and 52 percent in 2011, Greg McBride, Bankrate.com's senior financial analyst, said the debt-to-savings ratio isn't really improving for almost all adults.

"Consumers may be deleveraging, but the proportion of people with more emergency savings than credit card debt hasn't changed much," McBride said. "Given the poll's 3.5 percent margin of error, one can make the argument that consumers haven't moved the needle at all over the past 24 months."

The research found that those with small kids face significantly worse credit card debt. Nearly 30 percent of parents with children younger than 18 have more money in credit card debt than in savings, while this is the case for just 21 percent of those not raising kids.

Not surprisingly, those taking home more money each week are the ones able to avoid debt, while saving at the same time. Almost 70 percent of those surveyed who make at least $75,000 a year has more savings than credit card debt, compared to just 41 percent of those earning less than $30,000.

Overall, the research shows Americans' attitudes regarding their financial situations have declined. Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed feel worse than they did a year ago about their financial status, compared to just 23 percent who feel better off.

In particular, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed feel worse about the money they have stored away in savings, compared to just 4 percent who say their situations have improved. In addition, 44 percent are less comfortable with the amount of debt they do have,

6:24 pm February 25, 2013

The Goose wrote:

I'm a pretty ordinary guy...if I think a thought, a whole lotta others are thinking the same thought: I have absolutely NO confidence in Bernanke, Yellen and the rest of the Fed. There are some excellent comments in this tract. Is anyone in the Fed, congress or the administration listening to the voice of the people???

7:00 pm February 25, 2013

WSW wrote:

The Fed is your friend. Never forget that. Low interest rates. No inflation. The dollar appreciating. Housing values increasing. Debt to GDP decreasing. The Chairman is an active member of the G20. The dollar goes farther if traveling abroad. All Nations are decreasing interest rates and so our dollar remain intact.

Folks need to invest according to Dr. Bernanke. Saving is useless in this zero interest environment.

Now to Thoroughbreds. A winner and 4 seconds and one third. A good weekend.

7:33 pm February 25, 2013

The Undertaker wrote:

Forgive WSW, he is delusional. I know, I pay his EXPENSIVE monthly retainer for care at the Napa State Mental Hospita in California where he has been an unhappy patient for 4 years now. The dollar has lost a lot of value since Bernbanke was installed as Emperor and as many people have pointed out on these blogs when they travel abroad now many places don't even want to take dollars at all. Savings is the American way, gambling on the rigged P.T. Barnum market casino is the globalist way and since he told you to jump in it, it's down over 200 points. Low interest rates are for huge companies but not for main street,.Companies and Banks are hoarding money not making loans. The housing market is not going anywhere as the shadow market is still hug No inflation huh, well the CPI is a pathetic joke as it doesn't bother to count gas or food increases. How many people on here keep saying everything I buy and my utilities keep going up.We have a higher GDP to debt ratio than Greece or Spain as again the national debt figures are blatantly false. We have now around 132 trillion in debt 116 trillion unsecured and uncounted. The Chairman is an active member of the biggest crime entity in history, nothing more. All nations are decreasing rates because they're all in big financial trouble and it's a race to the bottom or destruction for their central banks and countries. Without the free feeding trough of fiat fraud near worthless paper for the Bankster's the FED provides with debt issuance of other peoples and generations to come funds the economic system would collapse from all the corruption it has bred. WSW I told you many times to quit playing that little electric racing game in your room your asylum attendant doesn't like picking up all the little horses in the dark. Audit and end the FED! The Military Service lies you told WSW well you own that wretched stolen honor badge as it was before I could get your mental rehab program started. Good luck and don't through your food anymore at your shrink, his dry cleaning bills to me are getting huge. Be a nice nut job, O.K.

Sincerely,

Your favorite Undertaker, yes, yes I will take care of your funeral services when that great day comes, wouldn't miss it for the world.

There is goes again. The Undertaker is fabricating and lying and giving misinformation. He is delusional and paranoid and an unhappy faggot. Cross dressing is a favorite for him. He is jealous and so anti establishment to include The Fed, that he has to make up his lies in order to quiet his paranoia.

Hopefully, The Market corrects further. This is a healthy correction. He cannot deal with my doing exceptionally well both at the stock market and horse game. Too bad for him. He is a loser and cannot stomach others who do well.

Hey Undertaker, how is your boyfriend? I know you play the sissy role. Just bend over and take it all in.

Good going, schmuck!

Support the Fed!

9:34 pm February 25, 2013

The Undertaker wrote:

WSW,

Surely that isn't all you have is it? It's no contest and so sad and disappointing. I guess I have to ask the NMSH to try and help you with your sexual hate problems too. You seem to have a predilection with gay issues which obviously are related to dealing with your own gender confusion. The hospital is excited to work on your many mental problems and finds you a very profitable patient. BTW did you ever notice you are the only one on these blogs every time that finds the FED in a positive light. I know everyone else is crazy but you right?

9:47 pm February 25, 2013

Cooper's Troopers wrote:

Hey Undertaker,

WSW is definitely gay. When you always mention it with virulent hate and loathing as he does it's always to cover up your own problem stuff. You hate what you are. Seen it many times as a cop.

10:58 pm February 25, 2013

Ed Walters wrote:

Went to 5 countries in Europe last month and repeatedly ran into what 7:33 disclosed on people and places refusing to take dollars. They wanted Yen, Euro's, or Canadian dollars.

11:03 pm February 25, 2013

King Ranch wrote:

There is a lot of inflation going on but the government flat out refuses to recognize it. People are broke because prices are up on almost everything but wages are stagnant as is unemployment. In just agriculture which is what I work in almost everything I buy is going up. I don't know how they can say there is no inflation. It's a lie.

11:08 pm February 25, 2013

House flipper wrote:

Prices are up on 200 K houses and down, but down on everything else which is a very big chunk of housing.

11:32 pm February 25, 2013

Al Jones wrote:

THE actual figure of the US' national debt is much higher than the official sum of $US13.4 trillion ($14.3 trillion) given by the Congressional Budget Office, according to analysts cited by the New York Post.

"The Government is lying about the amount of debt. It is engaging in Enron accounting," said Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and co-author of The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future.

"The problem is we're seeing an explosion in debt and spending" added Andrew Moylan, director of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union.

In 1980, the debt - the accumulated red ink incurred by the Federal Government - was $US909 billion.

This represented some 33 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Thirty years later, based on this year's second-quarter numbers, the CBO said the debt was $US13.4 trillion, or 92 per cent of GDP.

The CBO estimates the debt will be at $US16.5 trillion in two years, or 100.6 per cent of GDP.

But these numbers are incomplete.

They do not count off-budget obligations such as required spending for Social Security and Medicare, whose programs represent a balloon payment for the Government as more Americans retire and collect benefits.

In the case of Social Security, beginning in 2016, the US Government will be paying out more than it is collecting in taxes.

Without basic measures - such as payment cuts or higher payroll taxes - the system could be on the road to bankruptcy, according to officials.

"Without changes," wrote Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, "by 2037 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted. There will be enough money only to pay about $US0.76 for each dollar of benefits."

Mr Kotlikoff and Mr Moylan agree US national debt is much more than the official $US13.4 trillion number.

Mr Kotlikoff says the debt is actually $US200 trillion.

Mr Moylan says the number is likely about $US260 trillion.

That is close to the figure quoted by David Walker, the US Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008

He launched a campaign to convince Americans that the federal spending and debt is a greater threat than terrorism.

But whichever figure is accurate, all three agree that the problem has worsened greatly in the last few FED free money years.

6:31 am February 26, 2013

Ex-Apostle of the $USD wrote:

My question on remains unanswered: How is the Fed's policy of weakening the buying power of our money and driving up the cost of living good for most folks here ? A simple question that not is not addressed by proclamations that the Fed is your friend - no demonstrable answer has yet appeared to that question.

10:28 am February 26, 2013

MegaCynic wrote:

The last line of the song "Hotel California" by The Eagles:

"Relax" said the nightman, "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave".

Not as long as Obama or Bernanke are around will there be an exit. The indexes have had a 4yr QE implicit guarantee. They won't exit.

10:51 am February 26, 2013

Wealth Effects wrote:

When Ben Bernanke uses the words "wealth effects" in talking about his QE (the phrase he has used repeatedly for 4 years), he is telling Wall Street traders to BUY BUY BUY!! And they DID DID DID. Stocks reaching record levels, last seen in 2000 and 2007 when unemployment was about 4.8%.

11:04 am February 26, 2013

17 Trillion wrote:

Ben Bernanke has at least $17 Trillion of bonds they can buy (the whole of Uncle Sam's national debt) before he's going to worry about the exit strategy. Ha Ha Ha.

Add a Comment

Error message

Name

We welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Please comply with our guidelines. Our blogs do not require the use of your real name.

About Real Time Economics

Real Time Economics offers exclusive news, analysis and commentary on the U.S. and global economy, central bank policy and economics. Send news items, comments and questions to the editors and reporters below or email realtimeeconomics@wsj.com.